Just weeks ago, a for­mid­able Sen­ate co­ali­tion ap­peared ready to pounce on pat­ent-re­form le­gis­la­tion, provid­ing a rare spot of bi­par­tis­an­ship in an oth­er­wise grid­locked Sen­ate.

But on Tues­day, it be­came clear that that co­he­sion is crack­ing.

The Sen­ate Ju­di­ciary Com­mit­tee an­nounced it would delay its planned con­sid­er­a­tion of a pat­ent-lit­ig­a­tion bill un­til at least Thursday — the third such delay in two weeks.

And as the delays ex­tend, the cross-aisle rhet­or­ic is los­ing that lov­ing feel­ing of the re­cent past. Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Ver­mont Demo­crat who chairs the Ju­di­ciary pan­el, ac­cused com­mit­tee Re­pub­lic­ans of fail­ing to provide “con­struct­ive feed­back” on a pro­posed com­prom­ise meas­ure from Demo­crat Chuck Schu­mer of New York.

Sen. John Cornyn — a Texas Re­pub­lic­an at the fore­front of his party’s pro-pat­ent-re­form bloc — shot back, say­ing that ne­go­ti­ations have “de­veloped in­to a fight between Sen­ate Demo­crats.”

“Sen­at­or Leahy may have giv­en up, but I am happy to keep dis­cuss­ing this bill with the White House and a ma­jor­ity of House Demo­crats, in­clud­ing [Minor­ity Lead­er] Nancy Pelosi,” Cornyn said. “One ques­tion I have is if Sen­at­or Leahy has se­cured a com­mit­ment from Sen­at­or Re­id to bring his bill to the floor. Clearly he has the votes; does he have the com­mit­ment?”

Di­vid­ing the two parties is a “fee-shift­ing” pro­vi­sion that would re­quire the loser to pay the win­ner’s leg­al fees in a pat­ent-in­fringe­ment case where the law­suit is deemed to lack mer­it. Sup­port­ers, in­clud­ing Cornyn and fel­low Re­pub­lic­an Sen. Or­rin Hatch, say the meas­ure is cru­cial to re­du­cing ab­us­ive pat­ent trolling — when com­pan­ies buy cheap pat­ents and profit from them by threat­en­ing in­fringe­ment suits against oth­ers in hopes of set­tling.

But Schu­mer’s pro­pos­al lacked the fee-shift­ing teeth Re­pub­lic­ans want, sources say. And it’s un­clear how — or if — a con­sensus can be forged.

Weeks ago, these dif­fer­ences seemed em­in­ently amend­able. The com­mit­tee claimed their slow ap­proach re­flec­ted care­ful craft­ing of com­prom­ise, not fight­ing. And at the time, both Demo­crats and Re­pub­lic­ans were laud­ing Leahy for be­ing “wise” and delay­ing pat­ent-re­form con­sid­er­a­tion as ne­go­ti­ations were on­go­ing.

Now, the stake­hold­ers in the pat­ent-re­form de­bate can’t even agree on how well ne­go­ti­ations are go­ing.

One source close to the ne­go­ti­ations said Leahy’s fin­ger-point­ing could sug­gest he feels hopes for a deal are un­rav­el­ing, and wants to po­s­i­tion Re­pub­lic­ans for the blame if re­form ef­forts come com­pletely un­done.

But re­form ad­voc­ates quickly tried to down­play the road­b­locks, say­ing the ten­sion is tem­por­ary and pre­dict­ing the sen­at­ors would re­con­cile their dif­fer­ences.

“The re­ports out there that are doom and gloom do not jive with how staffers work­ing on the is­sue feel,” said Tim Spar­apani, vice pres­id­ent of gov­ern­ment re­la­tions for the App De­velopers Al­li­ance. “Not reach­ing a solu­tion is not pal­at­able to the mem­bers or their staff — we’re go­ing to get something worked out.”

Spar­apani ad­ded that only those who don’t want any pat­ent re­form passed — in­clud­ing en­tit­ies that claim they only op­pose one spe­cif­ic pro­vi­sion — are sug­gest­ing the sky is fall­ing on ne­go­ti­ations en­tirely.

Whatever the case, lob­by­ing for and against pat­ent re­form has spiked con­sid­er­ably over the past week, as a daunt­ing and di­verse swath of busi­ness in­terests in­clud­ing tech, uni­versit­ies, tri­al law­yers, and re­tail­ers have launched fi­nal pushes to keep their favored pro­vi­sions from get­ting axed — or en­sure cer­tain meas­ures don’t see the light of day.

The House quickly passed pat­ent re­form late last year, as Ju­di­ciary Chair­man Bob Good­latte quickly muscled his In­nov­a­tion Act through com­mit­tee be­fore earn­ing a sweep­ing bi­par­tis­an vic­tory when it came up for a vote on the House floor.

"The Senate passed a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill on Tuesday night, handing a significant victory to President Trump and senators who lobbied to advance the legislation before the end of the year. Senators voted 87-12 on the legislation, which merges a House-passed prison reform bill aimed at reducing recidivism with a handful of changes to sentencing laws and mandatory minimum prison sentences." The House aims to vote on the measure when it reconvenes later this week.

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Judge Delays Flynn Sentencing

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Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan "agreed Tuesday to postpone Michael Flynn’s sentencing after a hearing to decide the punishment for President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser went awry." Sullivan gave Flynn a chance to reconsider his decision to plead guilty, adding that he could not "guarantee a sentence without prison time, even after the special counsel’s office recommended that Flynn not be incarcerated. After a brief recess, Sullivan and prosecutors agreed to delay sentencing so that Flynn could "eke out the last modicum of cooperation."